Intel to Collaborate with Microsoft on DARPA Program
March 08 2021 - 8:00AM
Business Wire
What’s New: Intel today announced that it has signed an
agreement with Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to
perform in its Data Protection in Virtual Environments (DPRIVE)
program. The program aims to develop an accelerator for fully
homomorphic encryption (FHE). Microsoft is the key cloud ecosystem
and homomorphic encryption partner leading the commercial adoption
of the technology once developed by testing it in its cloud
offerings, including Microsoft Azure and the Microsoft JEDI cloud,
with the U.S. government. The multiyear program represents a
cross-team effort across multiple Intel groups, including Intel
Labs, the Design Engineering Group and the Data Platforms Group, to
tackle “the final frontier” in data privacy, which is computing on
fully encrypted data without access to decryption keys.
“Fully homomorphic encryption remains the
holy grail in the quest to keep data secure while in use. Despite
strong advances in trusted execution environments and other
confidential computing technologies to protect data while at rest
and in transit, data is unencrypted during computation, opening the
possibility of potential attacks at this stage. This frequently
inhibits our ability to fully share and extract the maximum value
out of data. We are pleased to be chosen as a technology partner by
DARPA and look forward to working with them as well as Microsoft to
advance this next chapter in confidential computing and unlock the
promise of fully homomorphic encryption for all.” – Rosario
Cammarota, principal engineer, Intel Labs, and principal
investigator, DARPA DPRIVE program
Why It Matters: Protecting the confidentiality of
critical information — whether personal data or corporate
intellectual property — is of strategic importance to businesses.
Today, many rely on a variety of data encryption methods to protect
information while it is in transit, in use and at rest. However,
these techniques require that data be decrypted for processing. It
is during this decrypted state that data can become more vulnerable
for misuse.
Fully homomorphic encryption enables users to compute on
always-encrypted data, or cryptograms. The data never needs to be
decrypted, reducing the potential for cyberthreats. FHE, when
implemented at scale, would enable organizations to use techniques,
such as machine learning, to extract full value from large datasets
while protecting data confidentiality across the data’s life cycle.
Customers across industries such as healthcare, insurance and
finance would benefit from new usages made possible by being able
to use and extract value from sensitive data to its fullest extent
without risk of exposure.
About Democratizing Adoption of Fully Homomorphic
Encryption: FHE adoption in the industry has been slow because
processing data using fully homomorphic encryption methods on
cryptograms is data intensive and incurs a huge “performance tax”
even for simple operations.
Under the DARPA DPRIVE program, Intel plans to design an
application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) accelerator to
reduce the performance overhead currently associated with fully
homomorphic encryption. When fully realized, the accelerator could
deliver a massive improvement in executing FHE workloads over
existing CPU-driven systems, potentially reducing cryptograms’
processing time by five orders of magnitude.
With its expertise in cloud infrastructure, software stacks and
fully homomorphic encryption, Microsoft will be a critical partner
in accelerating the commercialization of this technology when
ready, enabling free data sharing and collaboration while promoting
privacy throughout the data life cycle.
“We are pleased to bring our expertise in cloud computing and
homomorphic encryption to the DARPA DPRIVE program, collaborating
with Intel to advance this transformative technology when ready
into commercial usages that will help our customers close the
last-mile gap in data confidentiality —– keeping data fully secure
and private, whether in storage, transit or use,” said Dr. William
Chappell, chief technology officer, Azure Global, and vice
president, Mission Systems, Microsoft.
What’s Next: The multiyear DARPA DPRIVE program will span
several phases starting with the design, development and
verification of foundational IP blocks that will be integrated into
a system-on-chip and a full software stack. Throughout the project,
Intel will assess progress against pre-established performance
targets on artificial intelligence training and inference workloads
using homomorphically encrypted data at scale.1 Beyond the
development of the core technologies needed for the design of the
accelerator, Intel and Microsoft will work with international
standards bodies to develop international standards for FHE. Intel
will also continue to invest in ongoing academic research in the
field.
More Context: Intel Labs (Press Kit)
About Intel
Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) is an industry leader, creating
world-changing technology that enables global progress and enriches
lives. Inspired by Moore’s Law, we continuously work to advance the
design and manufacturing of semiconductors to help address our
customers’ greatest challenges. By embedding intelligence in the
cloud, network, edge and every kind of computing device, we unleash
the potential of data to transform business and society for the
better. To learn more about Intel’s innovations, go to
newsroom.intel.com and intel.com.
1 Intel technologies may require enabled hardware, software or
service activation. No product or component can be absolutely
secure.
© Intel Corporation. Intel, the Intel logo and other Intel marks
are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries. Other
names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
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Supriya Venkat 503-320-8024 supriya.venkat@intel.com
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